Students are turning into beggars

More of my students are turning into beggars.

Not for money. For marks.

They come to my desk, and they do not want to talk about the work.

They want a favor.

Skip this assignment.
Reopen that exam.
Bend the rule, just this once, just for them.

And there is always a story attached, a hard-luck story.

What is the difference between a student who wants to skip an exam with a sad tale, and a beggar at a traffic signal with a cock-and-bull story about having no one at home to earn for her?

One of these students was absent the entire semester. Her story was tragic, and it was true. During her Mehndi, the pre-wedding celebration, while her whole family was celebrating, her father passed away. It is hard to imagine anything crueler.

But after that, she never attended a single class. And every time, the same line. My father passed away.

By the time a teacher finally confronted her, the father had been dead three semesters. Now the story had moved on. Now it was her husband who had lost his job.

She is not the only one. Another student missed class after class because of a miscarriage. The same miscarriage, semester after semester. When she finally had a baby girl, the story changed at last: now she could not attend because the baby was too young to leave alone.

Another got married mid-semester. Near the end she went around telling teachers she was having trouble with her in-laws. Twenty or thirty days into a marriage. I am fairly sure the in-laws were fine. The trouble was invented to buy a favor.

I think this spreads because the students are not aiming at anything. They are not here to get good at a thing. They want the degree, somehow. They want the grade, somehow. C or a D is plenty, because there was no pride in the work to begin with. And some of them still come back to haggle for a few more marks on top of that.

But the students are only half of it. Most teachers I know are weak at assessment. Worse, they believe passing a student for free is a good deed, that God will reward them for the mercy. So they wave everyone through and feel holy about it.

Call it mercy if you like. It is the same shortcut, taken from the other side of the desk.

Where is the line between compassion and being played?